Standing side by side on their baseball field Tuesday afternoon, five of Willow Glen’s best football players looked at each other and smiled when asked if they knew how many games they’ve lost over the past two years.

“It’s not much,” junior James Johnson offered.

Even that might have been an understatement.

Months after the Willow Glen football team went 11-2 and won a Central Coast Section championship, the school’s baseball team is off to a 14-4 start. Throw in last season’s 27-1 baseball record, and the five athletes who play football and baseball at Willow Glen haven’t done a whole lot of losing lately.

“We’re having a blast,” said Joey Gotelli, an outfielder who caught 37 passes for the football team last fall. “We’ve spent a ton of time together. It’s kind of cool because football was really serious and intense, but baseball has been pretty relaxed.”

Johnson, Gotelli, Mitch Ravizza, Jake Wilson and Mark Amann have known each other for years, having grown up playing baseball, football and even occasionally soccer with and against each other.

Willow Glen baseball coach Mike Riley coached some of those Little League teams, and saw plenty of talent headed for his high school program.

“We knew these kids were coming for years,” Riley said. “The main thing was keeping them at Willow Glen. Their parents took a chance and came to a public school, because all of them could have thrived at private schools.”

The success has been almost immediate, and somewhat stunning considering Wilson is the only senior in the group. The rest are juniors, and part of a baseball team — along with juniors such as Connor Martin and James Hatano, and sophomores John Riley, Justin Bruce and Osborne Steven — that Riley said might be even better next season.

“This is just an amazing group,” Riley said. “They’re real competitive. The football players came in with an aggressive nature and it fit us well because we play an aggressive style.

“These guys just hate to lose.”

The Rams are averaging more than seven runs per game and lead the section with 13 home runs. Amann (.450 batting average), Johnson (.382, three homers) and Ravizza (.353) are doing much of the damage.

Willow Glen is off to a 10-3 start in the Mount Hamilton Division, a stretch the returning players said they hope will help this fall. Led by Ravizza, the option quarterback who totaled 55 touchdowns last season, the football team will move up to the “A” league.

“This season gives us a great mind set,” Amann said. “Being in the ‘A’ league right now shows us how to compete in close games and against better athletes.”

The two-sport athletes didn’t have many close games during football season, but that doesn’t mean their waiting baseball coach watched with a relaxed mind set.

“I went to all their games,” Riley said with a smile, “And just hoped like hell Mitch didn’t get hurt.”

None of the football players did, and after taking a short break, they joined the baseball team with their eyes on another big prize.

“We definitely want to win a ring with this baseball team, too,” Johnson said. “And it would be sick to get a second one.”

Don’t count on the Rams coming up short. It hasn’t happened a whole lot lately.

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